No. 143: Future pulse, brilliant kids and a 90-second iced brew

Diamonds are an oncologist's best friend.

July 11, 2016

It’s Monday again: A great start to the week everybody, and welcome new readers, including John, Lisa, Carly, Gregg and Larry. Today is July 11, on which Tijuana was founded, the Babe debuted and “Mockingbird” dropped.

Correction: Friday was not June 8, as the last newsletter suggested. Sorry about that. Also, to the 14 percent of readers who clicked on the Perry Como link, our apologies if “Hot Diggity” is still stuck in your head. Learn more about earworm here.

Takes lots of nerve: Bioelectronic medicine, on which Long Island is pinning considerable economic development hopes, took a mighty step forward this month with a clinical trial and companion paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Innovate’s Gregory Zeller on why zapping the immune system is such a big deal.

Top of the site

Albany has a newfound love for Long Island. (Probably short-lived, but we’ll take it.)

Westbury brings home $10 million from the guv’s latest eco-dev sweepstakes.

The Friday newsletter. (Likely people revisiting that June 8 screw up.)

War stories: Join us for a rousing roundtable on the pitfalls facing young companies as they head out for financing. Allan Cohen, Harvey Brofman and Dan Polner with Kominicki riding herd, July 14 – that’s Thursday – Melville Marriott, 8 to 10 a.m., free but register.

And don’t miss: Hot Topics in Intellectual Property Law, July 20, noon to 5 p.m., Princeton Club NYC, offers 3.5 CLEs, including the much-sought ethics credit, and lunch, $195 for members, more for nots, discounts for students, info and registration here.

About our sponsor: Farmingdale State College is New York’s largest public college of applied science and technology, and a national pioneer in environment sustainability. With almost 9,000 students, Farmingdale boasts Long Island’s second-largest undergraduate enrollment among four-year institutions and offers rigorous academic programs in business, engineering technology, and the health sciences. Learn more here.

Don’t forget: It’s the last week to nominate for the Innovator of the Year awards. Tell us about your favorite big-thinker via events@innovateli.com. Questions? Query Marlene McDonnell at the same address.

Brown bagging innovation: Eating the same lunch every day – in this case, ham and pepper-jack cheese on whole wheat, no mayo – can lead to big things.

A diamond is an oncologist’s best friend: Stony Brook prof Erik Muller is leading a research team that is perfecting diamond beams for radiation therapy, tripling the speed and precision while reducing the effect on adjacent healthy tissue.

Sweet: BNL researchers have found a way to significantly boost the natural sugars in aspen trees, making them a prized candidate for bioenergy production. (Why aspens? Fast growing in even lousy soil and not particular about climate.)

Tech night and the feeling’s right: LISTnet’s Women in Technology group hosts a roundtable and happy hour, Thursday, July 14, LaunchPad Huntington, 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Making the rounds: U.S. startups raised $40B in the first half of 2016, according to a report by PitchBook Data, most of it for late-stage unicorns. The total puts 2016 on pace to match the $79 billion raised in 2015.

Related: Uber represented 28 percent of all funding in Q2. The firm raised another $1.5 billion last week, this time through a high-yield loan marketed by Morgan Stanley. No IPO coming soon, BTW. CEO Travis Kalanick says it could be 10 years, or “as late as humanly possible.”